It’s hard to remember a time without Lukas Podolski. He burst onto the scene as an 18-year-old after scoring 10 goals in his first 19 Bundesliga appearances with FC Köln . . . that was 16 years ago.
He’s since gone on to play for Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Galatasaray and Vissel Kobe, as well as representing Germany 130 times before announcing his international retirement after Euro 2016.
After failing to come off the bench in PSG’s 2-1 Champions League defeat to Borussia Dortmund, Edinson Cavani was handed a start against Bordeaux in Ligue 1 action Sunday and scored his landmark 200th goal for the club.
Cavani was already PSG’s all-time leading scorer (Zlatan Ibrahimović is second with 156), but it’s a special milestone for the 33-year-old as his seventh season in Paris figures to be his last.
Anthony Martial's not the sort of forward you’d associate with winning the ball back in the attacking third after a demonstration of single-minded counter pressing. He’s not a target man, but he’s also not going to thrive when shunted out wide and asked to perform industriously.
There are two arenas in which professional sports teams succeed: on the field and on social media. As Southampton showed earlier this season, it's possible to win online even after losing on the pitch. A master class Club Brugge tweet at Manchester United ahead of the two sides’ Europa League Round of 32 first leg bout once again showed the power of Twitter.
Jesse Marsch's RB Salzburg entered its Europa League Round of 32 first leg against Eintracht Frankfurt looking to rebound from a loss against LASK this past weekend which cost Salzburg first place in the Austrian Bundesliga. Frankfurt came into the game having won four of its last six games, most recently putting five goals past Augsburg. Only Bayern Munich has racked up more points than Frankfurt since the Bundesliga's winter break.
In terms of a 1-0 scoreline, there’s no greater beatdown than the one RB Leipzig just administered to Tottenham in London on Wednesday. The difference on the scoreboard was Timo Werner’s 58th-minute penalty, but the difference on the pitch was an incredible gulf in tempo, build-up play and variation in attack.
Diego Simeone once summed up his coaching philosophy in one brief sentence: “Effort is non-negotiable.”
On Tuesday, the Atlético team on the pitch at the Wanda Metropolitano fully embodied its manager in a heroic 1-0 Champions League Round of 16 first-leg victory over defending champion Liverpool.
Harry Maguire of Manchester United decided to give Chelsea’s Michy Batshuayi the boot . . . literally. During the first half of the Red Devils-Blues showdown, Maguire kicked Batshuayi where it hurts most.
What did you make of the Harry Maguire/Michy Batshuayi incident earlier in the match? pic.twitter.com/QYg80N9mCQ
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) February 17, 2020
While the men’s Champions League Round of 16 begins this week, the women’s competition doesn’t return until the end of March with the staging of the quarterfinals. The question — on the back of four straight titles — is can anyone disrupt Lyon’s recent hegemony of the competition?
One potential answer is Wolfsburg.
The club won back-to-back European titles in 2013 and 2014, but in the five tournaments since, they’ve been bounced by Lyon four times (twice in the final, twice in the quarters). This season, the two clubs won’t possibly meet until the final.
After a run of four straight draws, Arsenal finally got back in the win column with a 4-0 victory over Newcastle United at the Emirates on Sunday. The two clubs somehow entered today’s match level on points, but the gulf in quality between the sides was evident from the off as Newcastle’s beleaguered attack managed only two shots on target while Arsenal dripped quality in the midfield and wide attacking areas.
Dani Ceballos and Mesut Özil looked like the most likely creators for the Gunners as the two combined for seven key passes, but Nicolas Pépé was in inspired form as well.